hello my friends. the bleak weather is here, and it is my friend. i hope it is also raining where you are. i have had extreme anxiety for much of the month, and managed it (“managed”) by reading near constantly. i also got real into a couple of mobile games. one does what one can with the brain one was dealt.

read: The Crooked Hinge by John Dickson Carr (1937). An imposter nobleman, a satanic cult, an antique automaton, the Titanic, and finally, of course: an impossible crime. Goes places, even by Carr’s standards. Library ebook.

read: Wisconsin Gothic cont. by E.H. Lupton. i reported on Dionysus in Wisconsin last month, after which I gobbled up the next 3 books in the series (which is all that there are, currently). Old Time Religion and Troth both follow Sam and Ulysses, the protagonists of the first book. Lazarus Home from the War switches the focus to Ulysses’ younger brother, which I enjoyed, and Lupton took the opportunity to dig into the Vietnam element of her early 70s setting. Ebooks from library & itch.

watch: Taskmaster series 20 (2025). Earlier this year I went from keeping up with British game show Taskmaster via gifs on tumblr to actually watching the episodes. This was the first season I watched more or less as it was airing, and my god it was a good one. Not a dud in the bunch.

read: He Who Whispers by John Dickson Carr (1946). This is the first post-war Carr I’ve read, and it definitely felt different. He uses the war, however—it signifies a very definite crux for many characters—and he plays around with psychological tropes which were on the rise at the time. Additionally, there is a sequence involving a lit dental display which I found thoroughly terrifying (I hate teeth). Library ebook.

read: Ravenous by R. Cooper (2021). Fans of monster romance, please take note! This is set in an intriguing alternate 19th (i think) century, and I had a good time with it. Also enjoyed how Cooper played with the concept of a monster. Library ebook.

watch: I, Jack Wright (2025). This is less a murder mystery than it is a family drama, which is not typically my thing, but there’s something so golden age mystery about a story that centers on awful rich folks and a will that I got sucked in. Some incredible performances, unfortunately ends on a cliff-hanger.

read: The (Most Unusual) Haunting of Edgar Lovejoy by Roan Parrish (2025). What if the kid in the Sixth Sense never did all that stuff in the movie and reached adulthood able to see ghosts and riddled with anxiety? And then met and fell in love with someone who creates haunted houses for a living. It happened to my friend Edgar Lovejoy. Library ebook.

read: The White Cottage Mystery by Margery Allingham (1927). This was Allingham’s first detective story, and what a debut. A country house, an impossible crime, a victim whom everyone hated, and the detective’s son in love with a suspect. This was my first Allingham, and I really respect how thoroughly she came out swinging with this. Library ebook.

read: Murder on Black Swan Lane (2017) and Murder at Half Moon Gate (2018) by Andrea Penrose. Thus begins the Wrexford & Sloane mystery series, which is set in regency England. The mystery solving duo are an earl who happens to also be an expert chemist and a woman who draws satirical prints for a living. They make for an interesting combination, and the author’s interest in her period is very clear. The dialogue is a little dense for my taste, but the mysteries are quite good. Library ebooks.

game: This is Blast! This is one of the mobile games I have been enjoying. It’s a color-matching block destroyer thing. I really love that the different levels have different color combinations, and the physics of the blocks paired with the haptic feedback really work for my brain. It wants you to pay, but I don’t have any issues putting it down when I run out of lives.

film: Wake Up Dead Man (2025). I saw this during one of the worse anxiety times so I want to watch it again before getting into my thoughts about it. Here’s a photo courtesy of Rian Johnson to hold you over:

dog:

cat:

a final note: I have been doing this little newsletter in one for or another for over a decade now. which is wild! i love to do it, and i have no plans to go anywhere. that said, there are enough of you reading it now that it’s no longer free for me to send it. if you enjoy it and would like to make writing it a little easier on me, I have a pay-what-you-can option. I appreciate y’all no matter what.